This article is from page 19 of the 2006-05-02 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 19 JPG
CONSULTANTS who were paid €150,000 for preparing the Ennis and Environs Development Plan this week came under fire in a Clare County Council review of the development plan process.
As part of the draft ‘Public Consultant Strategy for Planning in Clare’, the council reveals that an unnamed firm of consultants were paid €150,000 for their work on the Ennis and Environs Development Plan.
However, acting senior executive planner, Candace Ingram, said that the Ennis plan took longer than expected to prepare in the pre-draft stages, “due in part to the consultants who did not fully engage with council management and planners”.
Ms Ingram writes, “The extent of public consultation on the Residential Development Areas gave rise to levels of expectation amongst the public that were unachievable and produced draft master plans for the areas that were too conceptual and not robustly tested against engineering requirements or realistic funding levels.”
Ms Ingram reports that following an increase in staffing levels in the Council’s Forward Planning Unit, the consultants were no longer engaged in preparing the plan. She said the master plans for the residential developments areas have still not been finally completed although the technical assessment of proposals and agreements for standards of urban design and road layout are advanced and should be completed in 2006.
In relation to the preparation of the West Clare Area Plan, Ms Ingram writes, “Lack of feedback to the community was an issue that resulted in the Rural Action Project and Eiri Corca Baiscinn holding their own meetings during the consultation period on the draft plan to which planners were invited to attend.”
She said, “This led to a distortion of the development objectives of the plan because the Council has lost close involvement with its own consultation process.”
The document has come before the Council’s Special Policy Committee (SPC) for Planning and the document lays out the template for the future preparation of development plans.
At the Council’s SPC meeting, the Council’s Director for Planning, Bernadette Kinsella said, “This is a very important document and will serve as a template for other areas.”
Ms Kinsella said that the document will show that unreal expectations were created in some situations and that there is not one right way to engage with the public.
Discussion on the document was adjourned to allow members examine the document in detail.